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MAY 6-7-8
THE
GREAT BRITISH BIKE WEEKEND RETURNS
This
"Three Days for Three Speeds" is for riders and
fans of the classic British roadster bicycles: Raleigh, Rudge,
Dunelt, Robin Hood and so on. Rides, Rallies, 3-spd workshop
and the infamous bike and pub visit. Find out a little more
at the end of this section..
Looking
for an nice old Raleigh 3-speed? Try Via Bicycle at 9th and
South! (215.627.3370)
JUNE
THE
ROUND*UP USA
small
wheel and folder bike fest
"THREE
DAYS TO EXPLORE THE COMPACT BICYCLE UNIVERSE"
JUNE 3-4-5, 2005
The third annual
carnival for riders and fans of
BIKE FRIDAY, BIRDY,
DAHON, BROMPTON, SWIFT FOLDER, KOGA, STRIDA, and more. Rides,
time trial, hill climb, fast fold competition, lectures and
bike expo make this a great time for all. And -- it's the
same weekend as Philadelphia's USPRO Cycling Championship--see
great bicycle road racing while you're in town.
Check the ROUND*UP
on this site for more pics and info.
WHAT'S
THE GREAT BRITISH BIKE WEEKEND
ALL ABOUT? -- here's an excerpt from
"The
Discreet Charm Of The English Bicycle"
By Steven Rea, of The Philadelphia Inquirer
...
Imagine
you're on a Raleigh 3-speed, painted British Racing Green and
built in the Nottingham factory that has supplied millions of
bicycles to the world for more than 100 years. You're rolling
down a village lane, flanked by stone houses, gardens, daffodils
blooming. You stop for tea in a little shop that flies the Union
Jack. You stock up on Cadbury Flake bars and Rowntree fruit
gums and maybe a jar of Marmite, that mysterious brown goo that's
been a staple of the English diet since-who knows?-the days
of the Druids.
Maybe, as you climb
back on your Brooks sprung saddle and prepare to ride down
a tree-ceilinged lane along a babbling stream, You're overcome
with the urge to blurt out a merry, "Cheerio!"
Imagine no more. Next weekend, it will be possible for anyone
with an Anglophile bent and an English-built two-wheeler gathering
dust in the basement-a Raleigh, a Dunelt, a Triumph, a Hercules,
a Phillips, a BSA-to do just that. It's called the British
Bike Weekend, it's drawing people from as far afield as the
Outer Banks and the Rocky Mountains, and it's three days of
rides, rallies, workshops, exhibits, a swap meet, and a pub
crawl, in celebration of that simple, solid, human-powered
mode of transport, what writer Irish Murdoch called 'the most
civilized conveyance known to man'...
There was something more than an idealized vision of Olde
England at when he (Trophy Bikes' Michael McGettigan) brainstormed
the GBBW.
"It's
a little bit of a response to the current negative state of
bicycling right now," he says. "Bicycling is being advertised
by the same minds that advertise cars. The bike ads are all
about agression, crushing other cyclists and crushing nature.
It's like the more you spend, the better you are. There's
a lot of boasting about using military materials , like titanium,
that make them extra expensive. The result is you have a lot
of people thinking that the bicycle is a very expensive form
of tennis racket that you clamp on the back of your car and
take to a suitable place in the wilds where you shred furiously,
and then load it back on your car and drive back down the
road."
In that sense, the trusty old British 3-speed with its fenders,
chain guard and internal hub gears-which can be had for $5
at a yard sale if you're lucky, or more commonly, $100 to
$250 at shops like Via Bicycle and Trophy-is the antithesis
of the modern-day mountain bike, with its aluminum/carbon
frames, 27 speeds, mud-splattering Crossmax wheels, dual suspension
Rock Shox forks, and a $3,500 price tag. Although Raleigh
continued, on a diminished scale, to manufacture the traditional
3-speeds into the '90s, the bulk of the bikes on the road
today were shipped stateside in the 1950s, '60s and '70s.
And for city riding, nothing beats them.
###
-- To get announcements about the GGBWeekend
and other cycling events-- just click "home" and then
click our mailing list signup box.
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